Tuesday, November 21, 2017

On October 22, 2017, David Letterman was the recipient of the 20th annual Mark Twain Prize for Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Guests included Steve Martin. Martin Short, Amy Schumer, Jimmy Kimmel, Al Franken, Jimmie Walker, John Mulaney, Paul Shaffer, and many others. One of the guests of the evening was Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. Knowing how much David Letterman loved singer/songwriter Warren Zevon. Performed a lovely rendition of Zevon's "Keep Me In Your Heart". Written by Zevon knowing he didn't have much time left on this earth due to his cancer.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Riot Act by Pearl Jam was released on November 12, 2002. Before this album came out the band made only 1 music video between the releases of vs, Vitalogy, No Code, Yield, and Binaural. And that was Do The Evolution for their 5th studio album Yield. While Pearl Jam were still a force in rock music thanks to their live shows. The music buying public were unaware of new music by the band because of their decision to not do tons of publicity for their albums. With the release of Riot Act, Pearl Jam went back to making music videos. But in the only way they could. And that is do live performance videos. Filmed at Seattle's Chop Suey club were "I Am Mine", "Save You", "Love Boat Captain", "Thumbing My Way", and "1/2 Full". The videos were only shown on Muchmusic at the time (now known as Fuse) But fans knew how to get their hands on those videos before Youtube became a thing. Riot Act produced a couple of hits. "I Am Mine" and "Save You". With I Am Mine reaching number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100. While getting mostly favorable reviews. Fans and non fans didn't give the album much of a chance. It debuted on the Billboard 200 at number 5 with 165,000 copies sold. It was certified Gold by the RIAA. If you haven't already give this album a listen. If you did back in the day and thought "This doesn't sound like 'Ten'. Give it another spin with mature ears.